7/21/13

The one night he’d spent in the joint facing armed robbery
charges was life-changing. When Gregory walked out of jail on the 21st of
March, 1962, he was a new man. That wasn’t to say that he’d turned over a
new leaf and would walk the straight and narrow.As a matter a fact, if anything, he would henceforth ply his trade with
even more élan. What changed that morning was his status, for a deal was made
with the devil. Just which side in the transaction played the role of Satan and
which side lost its soul has still proven to be ambiguous.

Over the next thirty years, Gregory Scarpa “informed” - he informed
the FBI - of plans and crimes and conspiracies, of conversations and rumors and
goings-on among the Five Families of organized crime.Gregory Scarpa also committed assault, supervised
bookmaking operations, hijacked trucks,
trafficked in cocaine, loan-sharked, stole mail, laundered money, ran credit
card scams, extorted, kidnapped, and tortured. And he personally murdered no
less than a dozen people. From that day in 1962 when he was first “turned” until
the very end of his long reign of terror in 1992, only when his behavior could
no longer be hidden, Scarpa had spent a total of 30 days in jail. He had been
known by other wise guys as the Grim Reaper; as the man who’d leave 666 as his
calling card with his victims. And he’d collected over $150,000 in informant
fees from his “handlers” while he was being protected.

One is naturally led to ask the question, like concerned
citizen and freelance investigator Angela Clemente has done in a 300 page
report to the Justice Department: Which is worse, a mafia that operates outside
of the law or a government that knows no law?

7/15/13

The West Branch Susquehanna River zigzags its way through
central Pennsylvania , passing to the east of the small community of Kelly
Township, about 170 miles west of Philadelphia. Cornfields patina the
countryside a brassy yellow, accentuating the thick boundaries of oak forests teeming
with deer and fox. Farming and hunting naturally dominate the local activities but
other than that there’s nothing to explain the unique group of men who’ve
called this out-of-the-way place home… except: the Lewisburg Federal
Penitentiary.

On December 23, 1971, a man walked out the doors of the prison
having served only five years of a thirteen year sentence thanks to a
Presidential pardon. At the time, he was already more well- known than some of
the men who’d occupied his cell-block before him – Whitey Bulger, Wilhelm Reich,
and Alger Hiss – better known than any he served time with – Paul Vario, RobertLee Johnson, and John Gotti – and even more infamous than those that would
follow – Henry Hill, John Wojtowicz, and Robert Hansen. His fame, however, didn’t
help him “post-prison” and he met resistance in regaining the glory of his old
life, so three years later he began to write his autobiography.

And then he disappeared.

His autobiography was published a few months later but it
didn’t include his obituary. That was to be written and rewritten over the
years by a countless parade of surmising G-men, deathbed thugs, and barstool theorists:
“Disintegrated in a fat-rendering plant… Mixed in the concrete below Giant’s
Stadium… Sealed in a drum in a toxic waste dump… Buried under the helipad at
the Sheraton Savannah Resort… Crushed in scrap-metal and shipped to Japan.”